When boarding an enemy ship, are there any strategies for killing enemy crew members? Whenever my boarding party corners an enemy, the enemy always fights until they're at low health (taking a fair chunk of my guys' health at the same time) and then runs straight for Medbay. At which point, another enemy standing just outside the door runs in to replace them. I could attack them in Medbay directly, but I've found that's suicide.
Is disabling the enemy medbay with ship-mounted weapons the best case then? I usually struggle just to get their shields down. Or could I pile weapons-fire on the combatants (fire beams, anti-bio beams) – or would that harm my crew as well?
I know that Mantises have the highest combat stats, but at the minute I'm having to make do with Rocks – my only Mantis crewmember valiantly gave his life attacking a sentry bot.
Best Answer
When boarding, I tend to aim for the Oxygen subsystem room - it's typically small, and critical enough that I will quickly attract attention. If they don't respond, then I've pretty much sealed their death quickly.
Meanwhile, I'll target whatever critical system I choose (usually weapons, shields, drones, or engines) with my laser weaponry. Once I've hurt one or more of their crewmembers, I'll target the medbay with missiles or bombs. That way, I can finish off heavily wounded crewmembers while disabling their ability to heal. Fire bombs and subsystem bombs are the best for this sort of attack.
I do believe that firing on the rooms where your boarders are will hurt them as well as the enemy, so I tend to avoid this. Trying to get the timing right for lasers (to reduce shields) + beams (to do damage) is also kind of tricky if you're also monitoring a boarding party.
Also, it helps if you've got a couple of teams of boarders - while you're healing the first squad, send the second squad in to keep the pressure up.
Some ships are particularly bad for trying to board, however. If they've got significant crew, especially a lot of mantises, I may give up trying to win by wiping them out. On the other hand, getting into an engagement and realizing they have no medbay pretty much means I've got a win locked down.
As you've noticed, Rock and Mantis crewmembers are the best to send as boarders. Don't forget that you can pause the game with the space bar, so if you think getting your crew back on board is going to be a close call, pausing and unpausing to slow the game down may help you slice the timing razor-thin.
Possible spoilers if you've never been to sector 8: